Mandela's Live 8 speech
Nelson Mandela addressed some 8,000 people in JohannesburgIn his address to Johannesburg's Live 8 concert, former South African President Nelson Mandela urged world leaders to fight poverty to prevent "a genocide of humanity".
Here are excerpts from his speech:
"Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times...
"So much of our common future will depend on the actions and plans of these leaders. They have a historical opportunity to open the door to hope and the possibility of a better future for all...
"Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice. It is a protection of a fundamental human right."
"History and the generations to come will judge our leaders by the decisions they make in the coming weeks. I say to all those leaders, do not look the other way. Do not hesitate.
"We ask our leaders to demonstrate commitment, not engage in hollow promises. It is within your power to avoid a genocide of humanity."
"Sometimes it falls upon on a generation to be great. You be that great generation.
"Let your greatness blossom. Of course the task will not be easy. But not to do this would be a crime against humanity against which I ask all humanity now to rise up."
BONO OF U2 PERFORMING AT LIVE 8 YESTERDAY.OLD AND NEW STARS TWINKLE FOR THE SAKE OF AFRICA
Yes, God bless Sir Bob Geldof again and again for his love for humanity from his Boomtown Rats days to date. He has always been plucking his rock guitar in accord with his heartstrings.
Exactly 20 years ago in July 1985, the young rock musician Bob Geldof launched the most celebrated charity concert in history called BAND AID to raise funds and foodstuffs to save the millions of the wretched drought-stricken masses in Ethiopia and inspired the popular American Pop Stars to record the multi-platinum album “We Are the World” featuring legendary Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Kenny Rogers and other singers. Then the event passed with time. The Queen of England later knighted Bob Geldof and he became Sir Bob Geldof, A well-deserved honour.
The world soon forgot about BAND AID and Africa never learnt from the lessons of the past. Because, African despotic and tyrannical rulers ravaged their impoverished continent in tribal wars and corruption such as the catastrophic Rwanda holocaust, the genocide in the Liberian wars that spread to the neighbouring countries of Sierra Leone and Cote d’Voire. There were wars in several countries in Africa and some of these wars are still raging on. The UN was over-burdened by the economic, social and political crises in the world. Running helter-skelter from peace keeping operations in Bosnia and Sarajevo to other parts of Eastern Europe where horrible and terrible crimes against humanity were committed in blood-letting “ethnic cleansing” genocides to the never ending Middle East conflicts and America and allies were engaged in the Gulf Wars and Africa was still engulfed in her own internecine conflicts. So, the UN was becoming helpless to continue to run to the aid of Africa.
The war in Iraq and the coloured revolutions in Eastern Europe distracted America and the other members of the G-8 from the worsening crises in Africa from Ethiopia to the Congo to the Sudan. The fears of another holocaust in Dafur in Sudan shook humanity and left millions of others in the world in fear and trembling. And once again, pricked the conscience of Sir Bob Geldof to rise to the occasion once more as he had done 20 years ago. To begin another jeremiad for the sake of Africa.
Sir Bob Geldof has become older and wiser and now sees the troubles of Africa beyond miserly financial handouts and rations of relief. Africa needs more than meal tickets and subsidies. Africa needs more than Debt Relief and cancellation. Africa needs dynamic economic and political reforms. Because, corrupt rulers have squandered the riches of their own nations and stole billions of dollars from the sales of the surplus mineral resources of Africa, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Sir Bob Geldof appealed to leaders of the G-8 to review their economic and political policies in Africa and he got the goodwill from all the celebrated musicians and other stars who rallied around to join him to launch BAND AID 2, now tagged Live 8 to lobby the leaders of the G-8 to do more for the benefit of Africa.
Tony Blair the Prime Minister of Britain is cooperating with Sir Bob Geldof to support the LIVE 8 Concerts. His Excellency, Tony Blair was formerly a rock musician in his younger days before moving on the higher grounds in the pursuit of his dreams. So, he understands the angst of protest artists like Geld of and Sting and they struck a common chord in their heartstrings of love for the poor and needy majority in Africa and other underdeveloped parts of the world.
Notable legendary Pop Stars like Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John joined Sir Bob Geldof and Bono of U2 among other fellow stars to perform in charity concerts in all the major capitals and cities of the developed nations that are members of the G-8. In Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo and other major cities, the new and old Pop Stars twinkled for the sake of Africa. Since yesterday Saturday July 2, they have been performing to lament the plight of Africa the Cinderella of the world and to charge the G-8 to put Africa on top of their agenda as they commence their meeting from next Wednesday in Scotland.
Sir Bob Geldof wants the Group of 8 leaders to increase their dwindling aid to Africa by $25 billion, as well as send an additional $25 billion to impoverished non-African countries. He is also appealing to the leaders to forgive the debts of impoverished nations. And he has criticized Italy and Canada for being tight-fisted in increasing Aid to Africa.The concerts included more than 200 musical acts scheduled to play more than 69 hours of music. Organizers said that 5.5 billion people would be able to watch or listen on the Internet and via 182 television stations and 2,000 radio networks and stations.
Musical Cry to Help Africa's Poor Is Heard Around Globe
By SARAH LYALL
Published: July 3, 2005
LONDON, July 2 - Hundreds of thousands of people gathered here and in nine other spots around the world on Saturday for a series of free concerts meant to persuade world leaders to give more money to fight poverty in Africa.
Bono joined Paul McCartney for a rousing performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
Live 8 Around the WorldPop Music Review: On Britain's Main Stage, A Mix of Hoping and Moping (July 3, 2005) Celebrities' Embrace of Africa Has Critics (July 1, 2005)Live 8 Website
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Live 8 Blogs (technorati.com)
Forum: Popular MusicLefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press
Bono joined Paul McCartney for a rousing performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" to kick off the main event in the Live 8 extravaganza rolling around the globe from Tokyo to Johannesburg.
The singer Bjork performed at the Live 8 concert in Japan.
The concerts, held in South Africa as well as in each of the eight countries whose leaders will gather at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Scotland starting on Wednesday, were a triumph of logistical flexibility, extravagant idealism and strange juxtapositions.
In London, the preternaturally scruffy Sir Bob Geldof, the former Boomtown Rat and the event's organizer, performed an old favorite, "I Don't Like Mondays," while the clean-cut billionaire Bill Gates told the cheering crowd that "some day in the future, all the people in the world will be able to lead a healthy life."
And in a development that thrilled music fans, Pink Floyd, riven by internecine feuding, reunited for the concert here, having not played together since 1981.
Conceived only in May and organized in haste, with additions popping up at the last minute - concerts in Moscow and Japan were announced just a few days ago - the Live 8 shows were intended to send a loud message to the leaders of the Group of 8 industrial nations before their meeting. The message was driven home in many different ways throughout the day.
In Philadelphia, an estimated 1.5 million people heard the rapper and actor Will Smith relay the sobering statistic that in Africa, one child dies every three seconds. In Johannesburg, Latoya, the master of ceremonies, said "we are here to send a message to the G-8 leaders to make poverty history and join the global call in the fight against poverty."
Some of the stars seemed unsure of the statistics they were citing - in London, performers could not agree whether 50,000 Africans die of poverty every day, or just 20,000 - but the sentiment was there. "This is our moment; this is our time; this is our chance to stand up for what's right," Bono of U2 told the crowd in Hyde Park, saying 3,000 Africans die every day of mosquito bites.
U2 led off the concert here, playing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" along with one of its composers, Sir Paul McCartney. The familiar opening line - "It was 20 years ago today..." - was an affectionate reference to Live Aid, the multi-act extravaganza staged in 1985, also by Sir Bob, to raise money directly for African famine relief.
Expectations for Live 8 were high, as was on-the-scene euphoria. Chris Martin, the charismatic frontman of Coldplay, which performed in London, called the concerts "the greatest thing that's ever been organized, probably, in the history of the world."
According to Sir Bob, who sweet-talked, strong-armed and shamed politicians and musicians into endorsing and taking part in the 10 concerts, the collective gatherings "constitute the largest mandate for action in history."
Among his "demands" are that the Group of 8 leaders increase aid to Africa by $25 billion, as well as send an additional $25 billion to impoverished non-African countries. He also wants the leaders to forgive the debts of impoverished nations.
The concerts included more than 200 musical acts scheduled to play more than 69 hours of music. Organizers said that 5.5 billion people would be able to watch or listen on the Internet and via 182 television stations and 2,000 radio networks and stations.
While enormous crowds turned out for the London and Philadelphia events, some of the other concerts - held in Barrie, Canada; Berlin; Johannesburg; Cornwall, England; Moscow; Versailles, France; Philadelphia; Rome; and Chiba, Japan - proved not to be as big draws as expected.
Although the Japanese concert featured the Icelandic singer Bjork, a popular figure nationally, the notion of suddenly diverting a huge amount of money to fight poverty abroad failed to capture the wishes of the Japanese public. In the end, only 10,000 people attended the concert in a stadium that holds 20,000.
At the Circus Maximus in Rome, too, the crowd was far sparser than anticipated, numbering perhaps just 50,000. But the spirit was there. Isabella Dandina, a 40-year-old housewife, attended the concert with her husband and three teenage children.
"I wanted to raise their awareness about issues like canceling the debt," Mrs. Dandina said in an interview. She said she thought the initiative would jolt the world leaders into action. "We're all voters, if you want to put it in blackmail terms," she said.
In Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair has made increased aid to Africa a priority, he appeared with Sir Bob on MTV and answered questions from young people about poverty.
But political support has not been universal.
Sir Bob recently told an Italian newspaper that "Italy remains the most miserly of the rich countries." He also voiced his displeasure with Canada, where he declared that Prime Minister Paul Martin would not be welcome at the Group of 8 meeting unless Canada agreed to increase its foreign aid budget, to 0.7 percent of its gross domestic product.
The call was taken up at Saturday's concert in Barrie, a small park an hour north of Toronto, when the Canadian musician Tom Cochrane repeated the 0.7 percent figure from the stage. But a poll published on Saturday said that most Canadians agreed that spending should not be increased unduly, lest it cut in to the country's budget surplus.
"I'm sure Bob Geldof means well," the commentator Connie Woodcock wrote recently in the Toronto Sun, "but where does this second-string musician get off telling Paul Martin he doesn't like our foreign aid spending?"
Reporting for this article was contributed by Chieko Tsuneoka from Chiba, Japan; Yasuko Kamiizumi from Tokyo; Ariane Bernard from Paris; Victor Homola from Berlin; Elisabetta Povoledo of the International Herald Tribune from Rome; Colin Campbell fromToronto; and Angela Macropoulis from Philadelphia .
Film About Despair in South Africa, and School That Offers HopeBy RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: July 2, 2005
Charlie Ebersol's need to tell the story of the Ithuteng Trust school in Soweto - where traumatized and violent teenagers learn to overcome their young lives' horrors - began with a visit to the South African township two years ago and has produced a new documentary, "Ithuteng (Never Stop Learning)."
Monument Pictures
Unidentified student at Ithuteng Trust School, in Soweto, South Africa.
"I have a great life, and I felt I had a responsibility to tell this story," said Mr. Ebersol, 22, who was a film major at the University of Notre Dame and graduated in May.
The documentary, which was honored in May as best humanitarian film at the MountainFilm festival in Telluride, Colo., is a raw but inspiring journey into the lives of teenagers ravaged by abuse, crime and AIDS. All were recruited by Jacqueline Maarohanye, a fiercely devoted teacher known as "Mama Jackey" who set up the school in 1999. Although some students board there, most come from their own schools around Johannesburg for after-hours and Saturday programs that combine academics, culture, sports, peer counseling, therapeutic dramatizations of the teenagers' own lives and outings to a maximum-security prison.
Mr. Ebersol, who now lives in Los Angeles and recently completed a stint as a production assistant on the film "Yours, Mine and Ours," produced the documentary with a friend, Kip Kroeger, also 22, with whom he had made music videos. They hired Mr. Ebersol's brother, Willie, 18 and a student at the University of Southern California, to direct a 17-day shooting schedule in the summer of 2003 because they admired a short student film he had made on a classmate's dating problems.
"I should have been intimidated, but I wasn't," Willie Ebersol said. "He came back from South Africa, gave me a blanket as a gift and asked me to direct."
The students provided brutally candid narratives of their lives to the young American filmmakers, none more than Lebo, a girl who described being raped twice and contracting H.I.V.
"They poured out their lives and didn't hold back," Mr. Kroeger, a North Carolina State University graduate, said in a telephone interview. "It sears right into you. Here's a girl you met two hours and ago she's telling us about being raped? How can she sit there and tell us that?"
In another scene from the film, an orphan named Dineo, who is described as having been sexually abused by her foster father, the head of an anti-abuse charity, confronts an older girl whose behavior toward her had made her want to give up the program.
"I thought you were a bad person," Dineo says to the older girl. "I hated you so much, but now I'm going to be your mother and you're going to be my mother."
While they embraced, Mama Jackey tried to hold back her tears.
"Here are these kids, who are not taught about love, teaching each other to love," Charlie Ebersol said in an interview. "They will learn to love and share it because Mama said you have a chance now, you have a way to dream."
Although the film does not yet have a distributor, it is winning notice beyond the award. Oprah Winfrey had already known about Ithuteng (pronounced IT-uh-teng) and Mama Jackey, but it was watching a DVD of the documentary during a flight to Johannesburg in June that prompted her to donate a total of $1.14 million to the school, said Gayle King, editor at large of O, the Oprah Magazine.
When Ms. King told Charlie Ebersol of the donation, she said: "He was incoherent with joy. He said, 'Oh, my God, Gayle, I was just trying to raise $10,000 to keep Mama's electricity on.' "Ms. Winfrey's gift was the largest to the school so far, but it has received support from numerous groups, including the National Basketball Association, which built a reading center there, and from Dikembe Mutombo, the Congolese player for the Houston Rockets, who donated $150,000 to build two dormitories.
Kathy Behrens, a senior vice president of the N.B.A., said: "I was with Charlie when he first showed the film to Mama. It was very emotional for her. It was very hard for her to watch Lebo, who had died of AIDS."
The lessons of Ithuteng resonated with unexpected power for the Ebersol brothers. Until last year, theirs had been a charmed life, as the older sons of Dick Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Universal Sports and the retired actress Susan Saint James.
Dick Ebersol bankrolled the film for about $90,000, after Charlie Ebersol and Mr. Kroeger began raising money on their own. Their father gave them guidance on the documentary and helped find film veterans to help his sons in Soweto. Their mother helped edit the film.
But last Nov. 28, a private jet carrying Dick, Charlie and the youngest Ebersol son, Teddy, crashed after takeoff in Montrose, Colo., near the family's winter home in Telluride. Teddy, 14, was killed; Charlie suffered a broken wrist, and eye and back injuries; Dick broke several ribs, his sternum, his pelvis, his coccyx and several vertebrae.
"I walked off the plane with my father in my arms, and my brother behind me," Charlie Ebersol recalled. "I said, 'Oh, God, how can I get through this without my father, and then I had to find Ted. In talking to God, I said: 'How can you empower me, and take away my father's power? I need him.' "
He said the openness of the students at Ithuteng helped him deal with his grief. "Mama believes you must cry yourself dry," he said of Ms. Maarohanye, "and that people shouldn't prevent you from crying. Willie and I employed what Mama taught us in the context of real tragedy."
Willie Ebersol said: "South Africa taught me that I can talk about what's eating me up inside. We learned from the kids that it's O.K. to be sad. If you've been raped, it's O.K. to say you've been raped. You don't bury your grief if you speak about it. You open up."
The film also underwent a transformation after the crash, becoming more overtly emotional with additional music to underscore the painful pasts and altered lives of the students.
"We had a fear of exploiting the emotion," Mr. Kroeger said of their initial framing of the material. "But after the crash, we realized we weren't tapping into our emotions. We had to make changes."
Now, Charlie Ebersol said, the film "represents our trying to find hope in the face of loss."
Celebrities' Embrace of Africa Has Critics
MAY GOD BLESS SIR BOB GELDOF AGAIN AND AGAIN!
Yes, God bless Sir Bob Geldof again and again for his love for humanity from his Boomtown Rats days to date. He has always been plucking his rock guitar in accord with his heartstrings. I am making this post in reponse to the article on Sir Bob Geldof in the New York Times to pass on the message of goodwill from all the celebrated musicians who will be performing today to lament the plight of Africa the Cinderella of the world and to charge the G-8 to do more for the benefit of mother Africa. And Tony Blair the Prime Minister of Britain is cooperating with Sir Bob Geldof to support the LIVE 8 Concert. His Excellency Tony Blair was formerly a rock musician in his younger days before moving on the higher grounds in the pursuit of his dreams. So, he understands the angst of protest artists like Geldof and Sting. I am sharing the good news with you to appeal to you to lend a helping hand to the poor and needy wherever and whenever you see them. And you don't need to be an angel or a rock star to do so. Charity begins at home. Look out of your window and you will soon see someone in dire need of comfort. Remember how our Lord and Messiah Jesus Christ fed over 5,000 famished people. Let us do likewise. The musicians are not just asking the G-8 to do more for Africa, but to review their economic exploitations and political manipulations of Africa. As much as I have said that Africa does not need anymore AIDS, I want to say Sir Bob Geldof deserves our commendation for seeing the problems of Africa beyond Western charities and urging the West to change their policies of double standards in Africa.
By ALAN COWELL
Published: July 1, 2005
LONDON, June 30 - It is virtually impossible these days to open a newspaper or turn on the television here without confronting the cavalier locks, rumpled visage and hectoring tones of Sir Bob Geldof, the former Boomtown Rats lead singer now cast by friends and foes alike as Africa's savior.
Jon Super/Associated Press
The rock star Sir Bob Geldof is leading a drive for aid to Africa. With awesome ubiquity - a rock concert here, a documentary there, interviews at every turn - he offers his listeners a blend of profanity, rage and messianic imprecation, urging the political leaders of the developed world to end Africa's poverty by rewriting the rules on aid, trade and debt. "To die of hunger is an intellectual absurdity and morally repulsive," he told the crowd last weekend at a rock concert in Glastonbury in western England.
This weekend, in anticipation of the annual summit meeting of the Group of 8 nations in Scotland next week, there are to be demonstrations and free concerts spanning the globe under the title Live 8. Beyond the high-sounding pronouncements, though, the last-minute series of events arranged by Sir Bob signals a profound and to some a worrisome shift in the realm of mass advocacy by the world's richest in the name of the poorest.
Celebrity and politics have merged, revolutionizing the aid business as much as the celebrity business. Today, no well-heeled rock or movie star can ignore the lure of association with a good cause; no politician can resist the siren call of stars whose message reaches an audience beyond the realm of formal politics. But aid specialists are questioning whether the emphasis on celebrities and one-time hyper events does not do more harm than good, distracting attention from the difficult, long-term problems. "We have given up on politicians as achievers of transformation," Chris Blackhurst, an editor, wrote in The Evening Standard of London. "In this age of celebrity, this summer, the celebrity has become king."
The alliance of forces focusing their demands on the Group of 8 leaders embraces cardinals and moviemakers, rock stars and Hollywood actors like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz. The events arranged by Sir Bob carry more than an echo of the Live Aid concerts he arranged 20 years ago in response to famine in Ethiopia.
Unlike the case at Live Aid, though, Sir Bob is not asking for money. This time he is seeking an overwhelming show of political support to remind Group of 8 leaders of the power they wield. Last weekend a prime-time television movie by Richard Curtis - a major Geldof ally and supporter of Britain's Make Poverty History campaign - illustrated some of the thinking.
Titled "The Girl in the Cafe," the movie, shown on the BBC and HBO, revolved around a fictional summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, where romance between a meek middle-aged civil servant - Lawrence - and a mysterious young woman - Gina - intertwines with the politics of global poverty.
"Eight men in one room could quite literally save hundreds of millions of lives," Lawrence, played by Bill Nighy, says in the movie, echoing a campaign slogan.
Aid specialists are not nearly so confident, however. "It's a good thing, in that the focus is on Africa," said Richard Dowden, leader of the Royal African Society, a private policy research body. "The danger is that it concentrates on one big push, and if you don't get what you are asking for, you are setting yourself up for disillusionment."
Indeed, some fundamental assumptions of the campaign are also being challenged. Will good intentions be thwarted by corrupt governments? Can African administrations cope with a surge of increased aid? "The future of Africa is not going to be decided by rock concerts but by African politicians making good decisions," Mr. Dowden said.
Sir Bob dismisses those concerns. "I am withering in my scorn for the columnists who say, 'It's not going to work,' " he said. "Even if it doesn't work, what do they propose? Every night forever watching people live on TV dying on our screens?"
In fact, there are those who argue that doing something for the sake of it can be as damaging as doing nothing. Even the Live Aid concerts 20 years ago "did harm as well as good," said David Rieff, a New York-based writer and authority on humanitarian aid. "The Live 8 phenomenon is part of this Western fantasy of omnipotence," Mr. Rieff continued in a telephone interview, "a politically correct version of the imperial impulse to give some money and all will be well, as if the problems of Africa are just the results of our not paying enough attention."
But, Mr. Rieff acknowledged, "Live Aid became the prototype for a new kind of celebrity activism - from Richard Gere campaigning for Tibet to benefit concerts for the Asian tsunami." He might also have mentioned Sharon Stone's campaign for mosquito nets to fight malaria or Ms. Jolie supporting refugees.
On Saturday, in Edinburgh, south of Gleneagles where the real meeting will take place, tens of thousands of people are being enjoined by the Make Poverty History campaign to wear white T-shirts and form a human loop around the entire city - magnifying the white wrist band that is one of the campaign's motifs.
"Governments only respond when their citizens put pressure on them," said Kumi Naidoo, a prominent South African activist who is the leader of the Global Call to Action against Poverty, which unites thousands of volunteer, labor union, church and not-for-profit groups in more than 70 countries. "The best chance we have is to mobilize the biggest amount of pressure on the G-8."
Church leaders, too, have joined the calls on Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and President Bush to agree on measures to eradicate poverty. "For the first time in history, humanity possesses the information, knowledge, technology and resources to bring the worst of global poverty to an end," said a statement on Wednesday from the Trans-Atlantic Forum on Poverty, a group of American, African and British religious leaders. The alliances might once have seemed improbable.
Prime Minister Blair has put Africa along with global warming at the head of the summit meeting's agenda.
To some, the links with politicians seem too cozy. In Ireland, Bono has faced criticism from people like Niall Stokes, the editor of the Irish music magazine Hot Press. "Politics and rock 'n' roll don't go together all that well most of the time," he said.
